


Komorebi

by signifying_nothing



Series: Words of Devotion [7]
Category: VIXX
Genre: ;), Disordered Eating, M/M, Tenderness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:33:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27248086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/signifying_nothing/pseuds/signifying_nothing
Summary: The future lies ahead of Hongbin and Jaehwan, whether they're ready for it or not.
Relationships: Lee Hongbin/Lee Jaehwan | Ken
Series: Words of Devotion [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1790611
Comments: 6
Kudos: 15





	Komorebi

**Author's Note:**

> komorebi: japanese  
> sunlight filtering through the trees.
> 
> [the rest of the series is required reading to understand what's going on.]

Jaehwan has had very limited hours in the shop, and most of those hours, Hakyeon or Taekwoon are behind the counter. Jaehwan mostly stays upstairs, laying in bed with Hongbin. The two of them talk in slow whispers, about their lives, about Gongchan. About the vision, and Jaehwan's heartache. Hongbin sometimes seizes, froths and writhes, yanking at his hair and clawing at his neck and face. Jaehwan tries to bring him down as gently as he can and if he can't, he calls Wonsik.

Wonsik is physically stronger than Hongbin, and can restrain him while Jaehwan tries to get through to him. Sometimes it works. Sometimes Hongbin just shrieks and screams and thrashes himself into exhaustion, sobbing pitifully into the sheets when Wonsik finally lets him go. Jaehwan knows Hongbin is so tired. He knows Hongbin can't sleep. He wakes up often and sometimes violently, throwing himself to the floor before he can accidentally strike Jaehwan. Hongbin's pain hurts Jaehwan, just as much as his own does.

Right now, Jaehwan is laying down, and Hongbin is blessedly still beside him. He'd had a fit an hour ago, coughing and trembling, his eyes rolled up and his body rigid. He's relaxed now, and Jaehwan can feel his easy breathing, his heartbeat. He sings to Hongbin, lips against his forehead, and can't ignore the curl of joy that he's allowed to do such things. That he's allowed to touch Hongbin like this. Hongbin can't believe it either, or so he's told Jaehwan. That it hurts, but not as much as it heals. And it heals so much, Hongbin has promised, his lips against Jaehwan's cheek as they lay together under the sheets.

_You're saving me._

They don't talk about the time Jaehwan has left. They don't talk about how they are going to be pulled apart. They only try to focus on now, right now. This moment, when Hongbin is stirring from his doze and dragging himself up for kisses, gentle and light. He lets Jaehwan lead him—lets Jaehwan lay him down and kiss him. He'd let Jaehwan take him two nights ago, whispered _please, please?_ As he laid back and offered himself because there was nothing else for him to give, and nothing else Jaehwan wanted. Jaehwan loves Hongbin so very, very much.

“You should eat,” Jaehwan says between and around kisses. Hongbin makes a sound of complaint. “You need to eat.”

“Don't want to,” Hongbin whispers, lowering his head so Jaehwan's lips press to his eyelid and the curve of his occipital bone. “Just gonna throw it up.”

That's the other thing. Hongbin has been struggling to keep anything down. He tells Jaehwan he doesn't want to, that he can't bring himself to eat: everything tastes like sand. What he does eat, he barely digests. Wonsik is on the verge of tying him to a chair in the kitchen and feeding him intravenously, whether Hongbin likes it or not. Jaehwan sighs, but can't force Hongbin into anything. Instead, he tugs Hongbin closer—kisses around his eye, his eyelid, the bridge of his nose. He licks along Hongbin's lashline, feeling Hongbin shudder and grab at his shoulders, skinny hands still quite strong.

For some reason, Hongbin is aroused by this. Jaehwan's mouth near his eyes, kissing and running his tongue across the skin, _very carefully_ sucking at the curve of the bone, and occasionally putting his mouth across the entire eyeball to lick all the way across, from outer edge to inner corner. Hongbin arches up, shuddering and using a hand in Jaehwan's hair to hold him in place as though Jaehwan could suck out his vision, take it away. Jaehwan wonders if it's because this way, Hongbin can't be forced to see anything. He wonders if it distracts Hongbin away from his curse just enough to give him a moment of respite.

“My heart, please,” Jaehwan murmurs against the wet skin, butterfly kisses until he reaches Hongbin's dry mouth. “Please.”

He feels Hongbin sigh more than he hears it, and is grateful when Hongbin drags himself up like it takes every ounce of strength he has. Maybe it does. He gets up. He lets Jaehwan get him dressed when he lacks the motivation and half the strength to do it himself. Jaehwan kisses his shoulder, lets Hongbin sit on the bed while he gets dressed, and holds his hand as they walk downstairs.

The others are already there, of course. Wonsik in the back kitchen, Hakyeon cleaning one of the shelves while muttering under his breath about 'inadequate dusting' and Taekwoon is at the counter, smiling tenderly at them.

“Hello darlings,” he says, and Jaehwan walks to his outstretched arms. Hongbin flinches, but Hongbin always flinches. He doesn't _like_ being touched when he's like this. But it's more that he thinks he doesn't _deserve_ to be touched, which is different. “How did you sleep?”

Jaehwan shrugs and smiles. Hongbin looks away. If Hongbin slept at all, really slept, then Jaehwan didn't witness it. His dozing hardly counts, no matter how still and quiet he'd been.

“Are either of you hungry?”

“I am,” Jaehwan calls back to Wonsik, who makes an affirmative noise and appears with a large bowl of soup and three grilled cheese sandwiches.

“One of those is for you,” he tells Hongbin, waving the spatula at him. “You have to at least try to eat it.”

“Wonsi—”

“Not optional,” Wonsik sniffs as he walks away. Hongbin sighs, pressing his cheek to Jaehwans shoulder.

All their days pass like this. In terrible waiting: in the agony of knowing that the end is coming, and that there is nothing any of them can do but stand here while the inevitable creeps ever closer, closer, closer.

~

New Orleans is a _big city._ Well. Maybe not _big._ Sprawling. He's been walking all over it for days now, from the outer rural edges, to the newly rebuilt suburbs, to the area that used to be called the French Quarter, apparently. He's learned a lot in a few days. It's been fascinating to absorb all that knowledge.

But today he's on a long road that runs parallel to the main... Tourist drag, he supposes. It's not quite as loud, but just as lively, and he gets himself a truly incredible peach-raspberry croissant and an excellent coffee as he walks.

He's just finishing the scone as he stares up at the sign. _Blackest Night._ He's walked past it before. It doesn't seem any different than any of the other witch-y shops around it. But the more he looks at it, the more the sign stands out. Somehow like velvet, more black, like an actual, starless night sky. The beautiful cursive lettering seems almost like the glazing edge, the whisper of moonlight behind silver clouds.

After a moment of consideration, of watching that sign while stars start to twinkle in its darkness, he puts his hand on the doorknob, and pushes.

~

Hongbin is pressed up against Jaehwan, sitting on a stool beside him while Jaehwan goes through some order paperwork. The world has not stopped just because he is here, and Jaehwan _does_ have special orders to fulfill, that require his attention specifically. So he watches Jaehwan work, feeling his own head start to nod, his weight to slump against his older companion's body, when the doorbell jingles. Everyone looks up. The bells makes a different sound for every type of person who comes into the store. Vampires, sorcerers, witches, all kinds. Normally there's one melodic tone per guest.

The person who walked in just made the bell sing out a pretty little harmony.

He's... Tall, is Hongbin's first observation. He's tall, in a ratty-necked olive-green shirt beneath a light weight, brown leather jacket. He's wearing worn grey jeans, scuffed black boots. There's a bag slung over his shoulder and his eyes are...

His eyes.

They land on Hongbin, and he can't help but sit up, trying for sitting up straight. He can feel Jaehwan stiffen beside him. The stranger looks at them, and Hongbin watches in awed silence as the man, the young man, the young man with brilliant blonde hair and a strong jaw and eyes as green as dogwood in spring, walks forward, bold as brass and with no hesitation. He walks past Hakyeon, past Taekwoon, to put his elbows on the counter. He folds his hands, and looks at Jaehwan and Hongbin. The smile that spreads across his handsome face is absolutely _stunning._

“There you are,” he says, keeping himself to the other side of the counter, though he sways back and forth a little, and takes his hands away from one another to offer them out to each of them. “I'm Sanghyuk Han. I've been looking for you everywhere.”

It's deja vu. Like Jaehwan, Sanghyuk is bright as the sun, light through the trees in summer. His hand, when Hongbin takes it, because how could he not take it, is big and warm, and... And _warm,_ emotionally warm.

“Hongbin,” he chokes out, as his fingers tighten, tighten, tighten. His other hand is in Jaehwan's shirt, clenched up into a painful fist.

“...Jaehwan,” he hears his lover say, because he's never been on this end of it, Hongbin thinks. Jaehwan has only ever been the one approaching, not the one being approached.

“I'm not sure how I missed you,” Sanghyuk says. “How I walked past here before. You're so bright.” Sanghyuk's hand reaches up, and their tangled fingers touch Hongbin's face.

“Wow,” he says after a moment, looking back and forth between Hongbin and Jaehwan before settling on Hongbin. Hongbin knows he's emaciated and sallow, that his eyes are bruised and his lips are chapped. His hair is messy and his clothes fit poorly with his lost weight but Sanghyuk reaches to cup their fingers against Hongbin's jaw, and his voice is so affectionate. So knowing, so sure.

“Wow. You're, you're so beautiful.”

Sanghyuk laughs, looking a little embarrassed, but Hongbin can't really see the blush on his cheeks, can't hear anything else. He's... Falling. Falling warm and slow and liquid, body becoming mist in the morning—the vision of Sanghyuk's glow over the edge of the counter is like the sunrise breaking up over the horizon.

**Author's Note:**

> happy endings only (•ө•)♡  
> i promised, so we're getting there ^^


End file.
